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25.8.09

Kitchen Experiments

I just made a jar of pesto and chicken tocino.

Went to weekend market on Sunday and got some gorgeous, sweet-smelling basil leaves from the organic stall.

Today we chopped up a cup of basil leaves (leave out the stalks), combined it with half a cup of olive oil, half a cup of grated parmesan, fresh ground pepper and my experimental 3/4 of a siling labuyo. Long ago they used to make pesto by grinding everything on a mortar and pestle. Now we just drop everything in a blender and voila. I love the color and scent of freshly made pesto. Tasted it a bit and love that one can just hint at the siling labuyo. Too bad I ran out of pine nuts. That would've really made it special. Can't wait to have pesto pasta for dinner.

For the chicken tocino, I just got six skinless breast of chicken fillets, sliced them into thin strips and put them in a freezer bag of 4 tbsp salt and 8 tbsp brown sugar. That's it! This is marinating now in the fridge. After three days, we can portion it out into fry-ready packs and place them in the freezer. Friday tocino breakfast!!!

I love how easy to make these two dishes are and how they're such a treat to the senses. Love the colors and the textures when making them. Can't wait for the aroma of pesto pasta and the comforting scent of tocino frying. I don't know about you but it's really beginning to smell a lot like Christmas. Haha.